Process of making shoe welting



April 0, 1935. M. o. SLEEPER PROCESS OF MAKING SHOE WELTING OriginalFiled July 13, 1932 ,ZQverzZor 7ars Q8602 'regy' Reissued Apr. 39, 1935UNITED" STATES PROCESS OF MAKING SHOE WELTING Myron 0. Sleeper, Hanson,Masa, assignor, by mesne assignments, to Panther-Prince Rubber 00.,Inc., Stoughton, Massachusetts Original No. 1,901,781,

Mass, a. corporation of dated March 14, 1933,

Serial No. 622,226, July 13, 1932. Application for reissue March 11,

Claims.

This invention relates to the production of composite welting for bootsand shoes-and the principal objects of the invention are to provide astrip of welting having upper and lower layers or I plies of rubber andleather or like material, re-

spectively, firmly bonded together and adapted to be incorporated in ashoe by stitching applied in the usual manner, and to provide animproved method of making the composite welting whereby a long andcontinuous strip may be economically piroduced as a result of a singlevulcanizing opera- The improved process and its resulting product areillustrated in a preferred form in the accompanying drawing, in which:

I Fig. l is a front view of a composite sheet in which the welting hasbeen molded in spiral form accordingto my improved process, the endportion of the welting being out free to indicate the mode of producingan elongate strip; t1Inlgig. 2 is a rear view of the sheet prior to cut-Fig. 3 is a fragmentary sectional perspective of a segment of the sheet,showing two adjacent coils of the spiral welting; and Y Fig. 4 is afragmentary section of a shoe equipped with the improved welting.

In accordance with this invention, the welting is manufactured byuniting a layer of rubber to a layer of leather or equivalentnon-extensible backing material by vulcanization in a mold or press, thedies of the mold being shaped to produce continuous spiral formationsdefining the coils of the composite welting material which issubsequently cut into an elongate strip. Each coil of the spiral weltingis preferably of uniform width and is formed with a continuousupstanding rib and with a spiral bottom groove which serves as a guidefor the ultimate stitching operation; and a spiral cutting guide orchannel is preferably molded in one surface of the composite sheetintermediate adjacent coils of the ribbed welting.

The stage product or molded sheet produced by the vulcanizing press isshown in Figs. 1 and 2 and comprises an upper blank 5 of rubber orrubber composition and a bottom blank 6 of relatively thin leather, thetwo layers being permanently united in superposed relation. Theuppersurface of the blank preferably has a spiral channel 1 whichdefines the progressive coils of the welting and serves as a guide linefor a cutting tool used to separate the coils and provide a continuouselongate welting strip. Each coil of the spiral welting material isformed with a rib 8 project- 1935, Serial No. 10,497

ing upwardly from its top surface, and has a bot? tom groove 9 locatedbeneath said rib'and constituting the guide recess for the weltstitching l0 (Fig. 4).

when the blanks are rectangular, as shown, the corners of the moldedsheet are trimmed to the outline H of the spiral-welting, and the coilsare then separated by cutting along the guide line I as aforesaid,thereby to produce the ultimate welting strip as indicated at 42,Fig. 1. It will be understood, however, that the sheet may be circularif desired, and it will be evident that the lenBth 0f the welting stripwill depend upon the effective diameter of the molded sheet and thewidth of the finished product. For example, a composite sheet having adiameter of two and one-half feet should produce a continuous welt atleast one hundred feet long and approximately -53- inch wide.

This improved method of making composite welting not only savesconsiderable time and labor in the production of a relatively longstrip, but also avoids the necessity of overlapping and revulcanizingthe ends of several short, straight strips or pieces. It is apparentthat a straight strip one hundred feet long will require a mold of thesame length or will necessitate repeated lapping and curing of shortersections; whereas the spiral process employs a mold or normal size andeliminates the tendency of overcuring caused by lapping andrevulcanization. The advantages of the improved process are particularlyapparent when contrasted with the prevailing practice of splicingtogether several short pieces of leather to provide a long andrelatively wide strip which is subsequently divided into narrow welcingstrips by cutting the spliced leather in a length wise direction. Insuch case, when the splicing operation produces a defective lap, severallengths of the welting are spoiled.

Furthermore, the resulting welting strip will have a slight curvaturewhich enables it to be shaped more readily around the toe of the shoe. Awelt made in this manner thus ensures substantial economies inmanufacture as compared with an all-leather welting; yet the thinleather backing affords equal security for the welting stitching III,while the ribbed rubber facing provides greater resilience and enablesthe improved welt to fit tightly and evenly against the shoe upper 12 asshown in Fig. 4, thereby affording a waterproof union between welt andupper. The

composite welting may be secured to the outsole I! by stitching ll inaccordance with common

